Lanternise

Spending one's time in learned trifles; darkening counsel by
words; mystifying the more by attempting to unravel mysteries, putting
truths into a lantern through which, at best, we see but darkly. When
monks bring their hoods over their faces “to meditate,” they are said
by the French to lanternise, because they look like the tops of
lanterns; but the result of their meditations is that of a “brown
study,” or “fog of sleepy thought.” (See above.)